Heart disease includes a number of conditions affecting the structure or function of the heart. They can include: coronary artery disease, including heart attack, abnormal heart rhythms, heart failure, heart valve disease, congenital heart disease, heart muscle disease or cardiomyopathy, and pericardial disease.
Heart disease is the leading cause of death for both men and women in the United States. Treatment of heart disease depends on the type of disease as well as many additional factors. Coronary artery disease is treated with: medications such as aspirin; beta-blockers; nitroglycerin tablets, sprays, and patches; calcium channel blockers; thrombolytic therapy; and surgeries such as coronary angioplasty and coronary bypass operations.
The number of patients with cardiovascular or cerebrovascular disease increases along with higher living standards (better food supply), the worldwide aging problem, and young adults' involvement. It has become the second-most-common disease worldwide threatening the health of human beings.
Angina pectoris is caused by insufficient blood and oxygen supply to the heart. The main clinical symptom is chest pain. It is caused by atherosclerosis or spasms of the coronary artery in about 90% of angina pectoris patients.
The major treatments for angina pectoris are vessel dilation, lowering of blood viscosity, anti-aggregation of platelets and anti-coagulation. The traditional medicines used are nitrates, beta-adrenoceptor blocking drugs and calcium-channel blocking drugs. However, all these drugs have many side effects which make them unsuitable for long-term use. For example, some patients experience a swelling sensation in their heads, rapid heartbeat and even lapse into coma after taking glyceryl trinitrate.
This invention involves a medication which can prevent and cure coronary heart disease with angina pectoris, the methods of manufacture and other usages of the medication. The medication, Dan Shen Pill (DSP), is made from a variety of Chinese herbs using a series of standard procedures.
DSP is an improvement on Dan Shen Tablet (DST) (recorded in Pharmacopoeia of the People's Republic of China Edition, 1977, 1985, 1995, and 2000), but there are significant differences between DSP and DST, specifically, the proportions in their formulas, manufacturing techniques and their clinical results.
Although there are many Chinese herbal medicines used for treating angina pectoris, fewer people use them nowadays. DST or capsules are still being sold in the market, but their manufacturing techniques are old, their efficacy is low and there are no quality control standards. DST is taken orally and absorbed in the gastrointestinal tract, where it is absorbed into blood vessels after processing in the liver. The bioavailability is low, and the absorption speed is low, which is not suitable for the emergency treatment of patients with angina pectoris. Accordingly, DSP is superior to DST.
Throughout this application, various publications are referenced and the disclosures of these publications are hereby incorporated by reference into this application in order to more fully describe the state of art as known to the skilled artisan therein as of the date of invention described and claimed herein.